Marcin Juszkiewicz

Today morning my home machine does not boot properly (was working yesterday evening). I suspected XFS on rootfs and it was that. Booted into /bin/sh and started xfs_check -f /dev/hda1 followed by xfs_repair -f -d /dev/hda1. There were some problems but looks like it solved them so I rebooted. Again system fscked.. Another boot into /bin/sh and another xfs_check/xfs_repair combo and again nothing.

Booted into single user and then SSH connection to other machine to get help on #xfs channel on freenode. ‘dtm’ suggested me to run badblocks on disc to check does hdd is ok. So I installed Debian ‘sarge’ on my swap partition and started badblocks -v -n /dev/hda1 — 0 bad blocks found.

So I decided to reformat partition and reinstall whole system. Mounted old rootfs into /mnt/, chrooted into this to get list of installed packages with dpkg -l and archived whole partition with tar. Then umount, mkfs.xfs -f /dev/hda1 and restoring from tarballs.

Next step: apt-get install --reinstall all-installed-packages is in progress now:

Need to get 389MB/676MB of archives. After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.

I hope that after this I will have working system again. System which will just works not like I had in last month when from time to time some files were missing from rootfs (kernel module or awk or other thing) but usually problem disappeared after reboot…

Maybe it is time to change something in machine — but how to find out what…

It was 13 years ago when Ian Murdock announced his new Linux distribution.

My usage of Debian started in ‘slink’ times. I chose it because there was no other maintained Linux distro for Amiga computers at that time (there was Red Hat 5.1 available but it was unofficial build without any support). After few installations of ‘potato’ I updated some parts of ‘Short Amiga installation instructions’. Then it got released and I moved to ‘woody’ (which was ‘unstable’ then).

But usage of Amiga with 720x480x4 screen and VGA mono monitor was far from comfort. I decided to not upgrading and sold it. Next machine was x86 desktop powered by AMD Duron — ofcourse it was powered by Debian. I started to use ‘unstable’ on it and still use it (but hardware was replaced by another AMD x86 platform).

Few years ago I had a plan to became Debian developer but then I found OpenZaurus and OpenEmbedded projects and they are taking most of my free time spent on computer things.

Why I use Debian:

• because it is FREE
• it has many applications to choose from
• it support all my hardware (but I use own kernels anyway)
• if I want to hack something which is in ‘main’ I do not have to check license to know that I can

Thank you Ian for creating such nice distro, thanks goes also to all Debian developers for keeping it alive.

From time to time people are asking about schematics of JTAG cable for Zaurus machines. Such cable can be used to restore flash memory content after destroying it.

For all models newer then collie (SL-5000/5500) there is a hope still as they are much harder to brick. User can enter “Diagnostics menu” via magic keycombo (which usually is holding “D” and “P” during Power key on boot) and then use “NAND Restore” function (NAND Backups are available in few places — TRIsoft is one of them).

Anyway below you should see schematics of such cable — taken from collie service manual. On Zaurus side you have to use Hoshiden TCX3106 connector (docs were available on Sharp Deutschland website) and is available for few USD in Five Star Associates. How to use cable? Do not ask me — I never had to use JTAG.

I just digged one interesting email from my SPAM folder. It is job offer from Google.com Engineering Group. Two positions to choose:

• Unix System & Applications Administrator, Google.com
• Senior Software Engineer, Google.com

Need to think about it.

Over week ago Jeff Garzik wrote on LKML about private mails with support requests. Yesterday RMK started similiar thread on LAKML. After reading whole discussion I decided to write what do I think about it as I am also getting such requests in private.

From time to time someone asks me for help (nevermind which way: email, irc, jabber, forum message) even in subjects which were very often discussed or are in OpenZaurus FAQ. I have many things to do and answering to all such requests are very low priority — sometimes I answer after 2 weeks (if at all). Sometimes I do not know answer and redirect author to forum or mailing list.

On the other hand there are requests are about adding software into OpenZaurus feeds or providing support for exotic hardware. If software == unmaintained, very low quality applications for Qtopia enviroments (I wrote about them already) then I refuse to touch them at all as this takes too much time to get good results (tried once with Mileage). Another thing is hardware support — it is hard to support something which I lack (did it once with CF-XGA card) but even if I have it support can be hard because lack of time (like it was with Ir keyboard).

From time to time I am getting offer or paying development but thats other story :D

Why Ask Questions in Public? is also worth reading.

Vacations was nice but ended… Now it is time to be back to work, websites, Zaurus stuff etc… Time to follow OpenEmbedded migration to newer Monotone version (partially did it already on some of machines), look at OpenZaurus users posts & requests.

I will try to write something how was on vacations later — we did over 300 photos which need selection. Many of them are wallpapers which I will publish somewhere.

It is good to have vacations…

• beach
• bicycle
• meetings with ‘long time no see’ friends
• good regional food

and NO Zaurus stuff, NO e-mails, NO phones from work — quiet and cool ;D

Many people use IM (Instant Messaging) each day. There are many protocols available: AIM, GaduGadu, GroupWise, ICQ, IRC, Jabber, Meanwhile, MSN, WinPopup, Yahoo and probably some other…

I use IRC since my usage of Internet began, then ICQ started to be popular (and my Amiga was connected to academic network via Ethernet), about year later people started switching to GaduGadu and some time later I started using Jabber. Today I use IRC each day (you can catch me on freenode and IRCnet), two Jabber accounts, one ICQ and two GaduGadu (one for private contacts, one for coworkers). My favorite method of IM contact is Jabber, then ICQ (I do not count IRC here as it is not so one-to-one chat). I dislike GaduGadu for its lack of normal features, ignoring privacy and such stuff.

For example — today I added contact of coworker to be able to send some infos to her instead of writing it in email or on sheet of paper. As usual she had to ask someone which number she has (GG use numbers like ICQ does — not names like Jabber or IRC). So I added her just to notice that she has a status ‘not available’. In this shit called GG it does not have to mean that you are not available — it can be that user defined status as ‘hidden’. In ICQ or Jabber this stuff is handled by authorization — if I want someone to be able to see my status I can authorize contact. When I told her that I do not IM with ‘not available’ people she replied ‘Why? I prefer this way and will not change it — you can send me emails.’

Other GaguGagu crap is called ‘conferencies’ which are just few people chat not chatroom/channels. Anyone can start conference with other people — but all people got request ‘do you want to enter conference with NUM1, NUM2, NUM3, NUM4. NUM5’ — lack of any method to block of showing own number to people which I would like to avoid (if NUM3 does not want NUM5 knowing his number he cannot hide after such conference request).